Bullard: Green issue is black and white - CNN.com: As he surveys the nation's landfills, chemical plants, waste facilities, and smelters, Robert Bullard sees an insidious form of institutional racism.
"When you look at the neighborhoods that are where you have a lot of different waste facilities... the people who live closest are oftentimes the most vulnerable people who have the fewest resources to escape neighborhoods because of residential segregation, housing discrimination, and limited incomes," said Bullard, a professor at Georgia's Clark Atlanta University and the director of that university's Environmental Justice Resource Center.
"Just because you're poor, just because you live physically on the wrong 'side of the track' doesn't mean that you should be dumped on."
Those people are predominantly minorities, Bullard said. In fact, more than half of the 9 million people living within two miles of the nation's hazardous waste facilities are minorities, according to "Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty, 1987-2007: Grassroots Struggles to Dismantle Environmental Racism," a recent report that Bullard co-wrote.
Widely acknowledged as a pioneer in environmental justice, Bullard has worked in the field since 1978. He is the author of several books on the topic, including "Confronting Environmental Racism," "Dumping on Dixie" and "Unequal Protection."
In his nearly two decades of work in the field, Bullard said little has changed.
